


Secrets

by benicemurphy



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Injury, COVID-19 quarantine fic, Fear, Getting Together, Ghosts, Happy Ending, Haunting, M/M, Quintessence-Sensitive Keith (Voltron), Sharing a Bed, homeownership, lockdown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:53:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27321508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benicemurphy/pseuds/benicemurphy
Summary: It’s an imposing presence on the street, the only true Victorian left in the neighborhood. It was built in 1890 and renovated only twice since then.______“Take a look at this,” Keith says. There’s a loose floorboard by one of the walls, probably damaged when the addition was built.“That's a shame,” Shiro says. “I wonder why they didn’t fix this?”Keith shrugs. “Probably didn’t notice it.”______“There’s something in here.”______Buying a new home during a pandemic may not be the smartest idea.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 52
Kudos: 138





	Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> For this fic, please imagine America has gotten its goddamn shit together and enacted a complete and total lockdown at the time of this fic's posting. Imagine what Italy did in the beginning: no leaving the house except to buy groceries or go to work, fines for being out without approval or after curfew, etc. If I could tag "Alternate Universe — U.S. Govt Actually Gives A Damn" I would.

Buying a new home during a pandemic may not be the smartest idea, but Shiro is in the enviable position of being able to work from home full time without having missed any time, which means he’s still being paid his full salary. And, to be honest, the Zillow notifications about house prices dropping every other day have been making him itch for months.

It will be his house, though his roommate will be coming with him and paying rent to Shiro to stay in the house. Shiro would have been happy to let Keith stay for nothing, but Keith is a proud, honest man who doesn’t accept handouts. No matter how often Shiro fondly rolls his eyes at Keith’s bull-headedness, it’s one of the things Shiro both loves and respects about him.

And, if he’s being really, _really_ honest, the $45,000 price reduction on a house he’s had his eye on for weeks is more than the push he needs to get pre-approved for a loan.

So now, it’s probably not the safest decision, and maybe a bit brash to buy a house based on a virtual tour, but it’s old and Victorian and fully renovated and _perfect_ , and he’ll be damned if he lets this opportunity pass him by just because the rest of the world has come to a screeching halt.

The sale and closing proceed astonishingly quickly, though Shiro’s not complaining. The sellers are apparently _very_ motivated, moving across the country as quickly as possible, and they accept Shiro’s first offer, even though he low-balled them. Again, not complaining— it’s just a little unexpected; the homes in this area usually sell for a lot more and with much higher competition.

Though, he supposes they have far fewer people bidding now with the state of the economy and so many people out of work.

“It really is a beautiful house,” Keith says as they exit the moving truck and get a good look at Shiro’s new investment.

“Could use a coat of paint,” Shiro says, noting all of the places that are chipping on the exterior and praying that he hasn’t made a terrible mistake. “But yeah, it’s really something.”

It is. It’s an imposing presence on the street, the only true Victorian left in the neighborhood. According to the realtor, it was built in 1890 and renovated only twice since then, once about twenty years ago and most recently just two years ago, when the previous owners had first bought the home. It’s both lucky and amazing that the house still retains so many of its original features, like the hardwood floors, the crown molding, and the gorgeous ornate staircase that winds through all three of the home’s floors.

The crunching of the gravel driveway (another thing Shiro would like to correct when he can) catches his attention, and he turns to find Keith stepping onto the back of the truck and hauling open the roll-up door. “Might as well get started,” Keith says. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

They grunt and sweat their way through countless trips between the truck and the home. Neither of them even owns that much stuff, but the bedrooms are on the second floor, and the large room they’ve designated as their home office takes up the third. Shiro plans to situate his desk directly in front of the window of the turret that juts out of the corner of the room. It looks out over a beautiful walking park across the street, peaceful and soothing.

Night has fallen by the time they finish unpacking the truck. Thankfully they have until nine o’clock tomorrow morning to return it, so for tonight all they need to do is get the bedrooms situated, order their dinner, and pass out.

Shiro caves first, collapsing on the old couch in their new living room, but Keith follows right after. “I know Chinese is traditional for moving day, but I really don’t feel like pulling out the bowls tonight.”

Keith scowls at him like he’s personally offended by that idea. “Ask for chopsticks. We’ll eat out of the containers.”

“Right,” Shiro says. “Sorry, I forgot you’re a barbarian.”

“It’s how takeout is _meant_ to be eaten, Shiro. It tastes better from the carton.”

Shiro huffs out a tired laugh. “Can’t argue with that, I guess.” He pulls out his phone to open the delivery app. “The closest place only has three stars.”

“Check the next closest place.”

“Oh, four-point-seven. Let’s try this one.” He adds a variety of options to the cart, all things he already knows they both like from years of living with Keith. He goes to check out and Keith snatches the phone. “What are you doing?”

“Paying,” Keith says, but only after he’s submitted the order. Shiro opens his mouth to protest, but Keith cuts him off. “You literally just bought a house, Shiro. The least I can do is pay for tonight’s dinner.” Shiro relents, but only because it’s already been done.

“Fine. Thank you.”

Although the food arrives ahead of schedule, Shiro is half-asleep when the doorbell startles him awake.

“I’ll get it,” Keith says, but he must have been snoozing, too, because Shiro still manages to get up and across the house before him.

The food is on the front porch, and the delivery person is already back in their car and peeling out of the driveway by the time Shiro opens the door.

“Let’s eat!” he calls when the door closes behind him. He walks into the living room expecting to find Keith, but he isn’t there. “Keith?” A grunt alerts him to the adjacent room. Keith is there moving boxes from on top of the dining table to the corners of the room.

“We can at least eat at the table,” he explains. The chairs are already around the sides, so they at least don’t have to search for those. “Probably the only time we’ll use it between now and Christmas,” he adds with a laugh. “If we can even _have_ Christmas this year.”

The reminder is an irritating and painful thorn in Shiro’s side. They’ve been locked up for seven months already, and neither of them have been able to see their parents or friends since. If they didn’t live together, Shiro is sure he would have gone insane by now.

“We’ll have Christmas,” he says, more as a comfort than an actual promise. They both know the chances of any of this mess clearing up before then is slim to none.

They eat in near silence. The day has been long and tiresome, and Shiro’s muscles ache from moving boxes for several hours. He can’t wait to try out the large soaking tub in the bathroom Keith and Shiro have to share on the second floor. The drawback of buying such an old home is the lack of a master suite or any proper closets, but the completely modern bathroom with a soaking tub, rain shower head, and double vanity makes up for it.

The house has a fridge, and the power is already connected as of this morning, so they can at least save their leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Shiro supposes that’s another good reason for eating out of the carton— everything is already in leftover containers.

“Do you know where we put the towels?” Shiro asks.

“Hopefully the same place we put the sheets,” Keith answers.

The boxes for both are blessedly in the second bedroom, albeit under several other boxes. While Keith makes his bed, Shiro gathers his things for the bath.

“You in for the night?” Shiro asks before he goes.

Keith nods and begins shifting through more boxes.

“Okay. I’m going to take a bath before I turn in. G’night, Keith.”

“‘Night, Shiro. See you in the morning.”

Shiro smiles on his way out.

It’s not much of a bath, considering his luxury bath supplies are packed away somewhere, but it feels nice to sink into the hot water and just let his muscles relax for a little while.

It’s quiet. With the door closed, the sounds of Keith shuffling boxes around is almost completely muted. There’s just the occasional scrape or bump on the floor that comes through under the door. The sounds of the water reverberate off of the tiles that line nearly the entire bathroom.

There’s a knock on the door that startles Shiro, who apparently had begun to drift off a bit in the bath.

“Shiro?” Keith’s head peeks through the door. “You okay? I’ve been calling you.”

“Oh, sorry.” Shiro sits up straighter and shakes himself back to awareness. “I can’t really hear anything in here. It’s kind of eerie, actually.” He chuckles lightly at his own ridiculous statement. The water has gone tepid, so he unplugs the tub and waits while the water drains. “Did you need me for anything?”

“Not really,” Keith says, still keeping a respectable distance so as to not invade Shiro’s privacy. “I was just going to ask you something about one of the boxes and got a little worried when you didn’t answer.”

“Sorry,” Shiro says again. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

Keith nods. “Yeah.” He hesitates, then asks, “Do you have everything you need?”

Shiro’s towel is hanging on the wall rack beside him. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Okay. Well, goodnight,” Keith says again. He closes the door and leaves Shiro to himself.

He dries off his legs and feet and wraps his towel around his waist to get back to his room. Most of his clothes are still packed, and he’s tired, which means he’s probably going to sleep naked tonight. Not that he’s complaining— the weather outside is gorgeous, on the cold side like he likes it, which means he can keep the window open and sleep under a light blanket tonight. Shiro is already smiling just thinking about it.

The door to his room clicks shut behind him, and he allows himself to drop his towel. All of the windows in the home are screened, thankfully, so he cracks all of the windows enough for the crisp fall air to come through. It smells better, fresher. Something loosens inside him, and it’s only then that he lets himself realize how stressed he’s been about this move.

But they’re here now. The house is his. The first payment has gone through. Their things are all inside.

It’s done. This is his home now.

He falls asleep with that thought on his mind.

____________________

“Where are all of these books supposed to go?”

Shiro is standing in front of what can only be described as a mountain of books. He doesn’t remember them having so many in the old apartment.

Keith surveys the living room. “They don’t all have to stay down here. I’ll put some of them in my room and some of them in the office.” His eyes dart to Shiro’s. “If that’s okay, I mean.”

“Of course that’s okay,” Shiro says, a little perplexed. “We both live here. It’s our home.”

Keith shifts a little on his feet like he does when he’s trying to think of what he wants to say. “I know, it’s just…”

Shiro waits. He knows better than to push Keith to express himself before he’s ready.

Keith goes back to looking around the room, mentally cataloguing where things should go. Finally, he says, “It’s just, you know, this is _your_ house. And I don’t mean like, you lived here first and I’m just moving in later. I mean, you _own_ this place. I just don’t want to take up too much space. Just in case.”

The last part is said quietly, murmured like Shiro was maybe not supposed to hear it at all.

“Keith, no. I bought the house, yes. But I want this to be as much your home as it is mine. You know you’re welcome to stay for as long as you like. Please don’t ever feel like you’re a burden or a— a guest in my home. That’s not true. It’s still _our_ home.”

Although Keith doesn’t look like he completely agrees, he doesn’t say anything else. Hopefully it’s just moving jitters and not a hint that Keith is thinking about leaving. Shiro sorely hopes it’s nothing like that. He’s gotten used to having Keith around. Truthfully, he _loves_ having Keith around, and if there was a way to say, “Please live with me forever,” without giving away his romantic feelings for his best friend and roommate, he would.

“Where did you keep them before?” Shiro asks in lieu of continuing the previous conversation. “I don’t remember there being so many.”

“A lot of them were in bins under my bed,” Keith says. “Since we weren’t allowed to mount shelves on the walls in the old place, and I didn’t really have the space to line my room with bookshelves, I just got those skinny storage bins and kept them there. It’s a pain in the ass, though. No point keeping them all hidden when we have all this space!”

All of the new space is an absolute godsend. It’s still completely unbelievable that a place this beautiful and this huge somehow showed up in his price range. He really thought, at the time, that he’d gone and gotten himself into some kind of financial ruin that just wasn’t obvious yet. But they’ve gone through the entire house, and other than some paint on the outside, some necessary cleaning, and a couple of minor tweaks they’d like to make to some spaces, the house is perfect. Shiro even had an electrician, a plumber, and pest control come through to check everything out before the deal officially closed, and they’d all reported everything in perfect condition.

In fact, the place is so big that they might not have enough stuff to properly fill it after living in little shoebox apartments for so many years.

“I think we might need to get some furniture,” Keith says through his laughter as he looks around the room. Most things have been set up in this room, and it’s still rather empty. Shiro can’t help but grimace; it is a little pitiful.

“I’d say we could go to IKEA, but…”

Keith sighs. “Yeah. _But_.” He rolls his eyes. It’s very much a touchy subject for both of them, neither the type to enjoy being stuck at home and unable to follow their normal daily routines. “I can’t believe they’re really locking us down _now_. Seven months too late.”

“I know,” Shiro says. “Trust me, I’m angry about it, too. But at least they’re finally doing _something_. And it’s not like it changes _our_ lives that much— we’ve been following the protocols since the beginning.”

“Yeah. Kinda makes me feel like we should have just kept going on as normal, you know, since everyone else did and we’re still here.”

Shiro knows Keith doesn’t mean it. He knows they’re both glad to have a roommate who takes the situation in the world seriously. But it’s still frustrating to hear him say those kinds of things, even if they’re a direct reflection of Shiro’s own thoughts sometimes. “It was better to be cautious,” he says, even though he knows Keith knows and agrees. “Just a little longer, though. It’ll be over soon.”

“Yeah. Soon.” Keith’s phone rings in the silence that follows. It’s most likely his parents, Shiro thinks, and the thought is confirmed when Keith answers a video call with a smile. “Hi Mom. Hi Dad.” He taps his phone screen and then gestures to Shiro. “Say hi, Shiro.”

Shiro lifts a hand to give the camera a small wave. “Hello.”

“Hi, Shiro!” both of Keith’s parents chorus. Keith gives Shiro a happy smile while the camera is still turned, then turns to situate himself on the couch for however long the conversation will take today.

Keith has been video chatting with his parents most days since quarantine started. Shiro has gotten used to it. It’s actually a very comforting sound, like his house is filled with family and friends and everything is good again.

He moves into the kitchen to begin unpacking there. It’s harder to hear the conversation, but he can catch snippets of Keith’s side while he works.

_“Yeah, it’s really nice … beautiful woodwork … think you’d love it, Dad. … yeah, when it’s safe again … walking distance! Yeah! Yeah, I’ll take you …”_

There’s silence for a few moments, and Shiro pauses with a cereal box midair as he listens.

Then, “Shiro?”

“Keith?” He puts the box down and moves back into the living room. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? I’m just unpacking the kitchen.”

“Oh,” Keith laughs. He looks instantly relieved. “That’s probably what the sound was, then. Just kitchen noises.” His parents agree with him. Apparently they heard whatever Keith heard, too.

“Just kitchen noises,” Shiro agrees. He’s more conscientious about how much noise he makes when he’s back in the kitchen, at least while he waits for Keith to get off the phone. He didn’t think he’d been doing anything especially loud the last time, but sound can carry in weird ways in these old houses.

Keith comes in quite a while later. The dishes, glasses, and other daily-use items are put away, but Shiro has left the countertop appliances and decorative items for Keith to deal with. After all, Keith is the one who does most of the cooking, and he’s a bit particular about how he likes the kitchen set up. Shiro doesn’t care as much when he cooks, as long as there’s counter space somewhere.

Keith laughs when he sees what’s left. “Don’t feel like messing with the rest of this, huh?”

Shiro grins. “Why should I put everything out when I know you’re just going to move it all around again anyway?”

Keith shrugs because he knows it’s true and gets to work. To Shiro’s credit, he does try to help, but Keith chases him into the living room with a dishrag and commands him to sit down and relax while Keith finishes up the work.

“Sorry I took so long with my parents,” he says later, after the leftovers have been consumed and the TV has been set up with all of their streaming services.

“You don’t need to apologize for that,” Shiro says. “I’m glad you’re close with your parents. It’s nice.”

“I know, I just feel bad for leaving you with all the work.”

“You didn’t leave me with the work.”

“But you did most of it.”

Shiro shrugs. “It wasn’t that much work.”

“Sounded like a lot,” Keith says. He raises an eyebrow. “There was some pretty loud banging around.”

“Really?” He thought he’d been better. “I really didn’t think I was being that loud. I didn’t drop or break anything.”

“Not after that huge thump,” Keith corrects, “or before it, really. Just one super loud thump. It made all three of us jump.”

Shiro raises his arms helplessly. “I really don’t know what it could have been,” he says. “The pots and pans were already put up. I was just putting away a box of dry goods when you went all quiet.”

In the dumbfounded silence that follows, Shiro feels a little offended at the way Keith’s looking at him like he’s crazy.

“You’re telling me you didn’t make the noise, and you didn’t hear anything?”

“Yes?”

Keith doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head in disbelief. “Must be a quirk of the house.”

“Cut her some slack,” Shiro says, nudging Keith in the ribs with an elbow. “She’s 130 years old.”

Keith laughs. “True.”

They pick some old monster movie that’s more funny than scary to watch. Then they pick another. The couch isn’t big enough to sleep both of them, so when they’re both starting to doze by the end of the second movie, they have to give up and go to bed.

Shiro bids Keith goodnight at the top of the stairs as they turn in opposite directions to their respective bedrooms.

____________________

Keith managed to get the next two days off, but Shiro isn’t so lucky, which means Shiro has to wake up early to get his computer set up and his desk put together before his work week actually starts. He tries to be quiet, but Keith is a light sleeper and wakes up anyway.

“Breakfast?” he asks. He’s standing at the top of the stairs leaning against the wall. His hair is a mess and he’s shirtless, not having bothered to find a shirt when he got out of bed. His pajama pants are resting low on his hips, and his happy trail is showing.

Shiro does not need this image stuck in his head for the entire day, and yet, he can’t stop looking.

“Um.” He clears his throat and forces himself to go back to what he was doing. “Breakfast would be great.”

“I don’t think we have any refrigerated foods, so… Oatmeal?”

Shiro laughs. Keith hates oatmeal. “Sure. And we’ll go shopping later.”

“I’ll make a list. I think only one of us can go.”

“Oh, right.” He scratches the back of his neck and is reminded that he _really_ needs a shower. “Do you want to go, then? While I’m at work? I can give you my card.”

“You don’t need to give me your card,” Keith laughs. “Yeah, I can. I was gonna unpack a little more.”

“We can do that together later. You don’t have to do it all yourself.”

“I took two days off so that I _could_ do it. I really don’t mind.” He turns to go. “Want me to make that list?”

A notification pops up on Shiro’s screen: URGENT. He sighs. “Please. I’m sending my card with you anyway. You can at least split the payment if you won’t let me pay for all of it.”

“You got it.” Keith gives a lazy salute and saunters back down the stairs. Shiro watches until the top of his head disappears completely.

By the time Keith comes back with the list nearly an hour later, the urgent notification from before still hasn’t been resolved, and Shiro is on the verge of tearing his hair out. Keith slides the list over to him for him to examine.

“Looks good,” Shiro says. “Oh! Coffee.” He notes it on the list.

“Don’t we have some?”

“We’re running low. Don’t want to have to run back to the store in a couple of days to get more.”

“Creamer too, then,” Keith says and adds that as well. He has to lean over Shiro to do it, all but pressing himself against Shiro’s back, and Shiro’s mind goes completely blank. If there was anything else he needed from the store, he’s forgotten now. Keith leans away when he’s finished writing and says, “If there’s nothing else, I’ll go now while it’s still early.”

Shiro swallows around his unusually large tongue and nods.

“Okay, weirdo,” Keith teases around a laugh. “I’ll get you a nice little treat, too.”

Shiro curses his wandering eyes for looking up right as Keith winks at him because, _fuck_ , he’s the most beautiful person on the planet, and when he’s smiling like this, Shiro feels like he’d do anything to make sure he stays happy.

There are people whose relationships have fallen to pieces during the past few months, but Shiro thinks his feelings for Keith have only grown stronger and more acute. Every minute he spends with Keith is another minute he _wants_ to spend with Keith. Even on their worst days, when they’re both cranky and irritable and snapping at each other, Shiro still thanks his lucky stars that Keith is here.

A hot brunch arrives on his desk some time later — apparently long enough for Keith to go to the store, come home, put everything away, and cook — and Shiro could nearly cry at the sight and smell of it.

“You made eggs benedict? Are you serious?”

“Don’t get used to it,” Keith says. “You seemed stressed.”

“I have been. Thank you. Wow.”

Keith smiles and rolls his eyes. There’s a blush steadily climbing up his neck and over his cheeks. “Yeah, yeah. Just bring your dishes downstairs when you’re done.”

Shiro’s stomach lets out an absolutely absurd growl. “I will,” he says sheepishly. Keith’s smile turns into a smirk, but he says nothing until he gets to the stairs and turns around.

“By the way, were we supposed to have people working in the garage today?”

Shiro swallows his bite. “No. Why?”

“Oh, weird,” Keith says. His brows turn up in concern. “I heard some bumping around coming from in there.”

“Well, I think the weatherproofing probably needs some work. Whoever they got to do the addition probably left a hole or something. Probably just squirrels trying to keep warm.”

“Oh, yeah. Maybe.” His shoulders slump but he still looks vaguely concerned. “Want me to call someone?”

“Can’t,” Shiro says around another bite, which he foolishly took thinking the conversation might be over. “No unnecessary house visits.”

“Damn. Well, maybe I’ll go check it out later. Don’t want squirrels in the walls.”

“No, we don’t,” Shiro chuckles.

The rest of the day really isn’t any better. Every ticket is an emergency, or so the dunces who keep submitting them claim. Shiro ends up working almost two hours over (and of course doesn’t get paid overtime, no), and he’s cranky and ready to punch something by the time he finally makes it downstairs with his plate from lunch. The smell of fresh tomato sauce permeates the house. It makes Shiro’s mouth water.

“What is that amazing smell?” he asks as he enters the room. Keith nearly jumps out of his skin. “Whoa, you okay?”

He moves to help Keith wipe up the sauce that flung from his wooden spoon when he jumped.

“Yeah,” Keith says, a little breathless. “You just scared me.”

Shiro frowns. “That’s not like you.”

“I know, I just. I’ve been hearing weird stuff today, so I guess I’m just a little on edge.”

“What kind of weird stuff?” Shiro takes the spoon from Keith’s hand and sets it on the spoon rest by the stove.

“Just, stuff. Thumping, mostly. Some scratching.”

Keith looks so frazzled, it has Shiro a bit on edge, too. He rubs Keith’s arm in an attempt to comfort him. “It’s an old house,” he reminds him. “There are going to be some noises we have to get used to. But if it’ll make you feel better, we can go through the place tonight and make sure there aren’t any animals or other trapped beings here.” He gives Keith’s bicep a reassuring squeeze.

“We don’t have to do that,” Keith mutters. He’s blushing again, but at least he’s no longer pale. “And it’s nothing,” he says, gesturing to the sauce. “Just something quick.”

“ _This_ is quick?”

“It’s pasta with tomato sauce, Shiro, not a beef Wellington.”

“Well it smells incredible.”

“Good. Now sit. Relax. Eat.”

The food is fantastic, though that’s no surprise; Keith has been cooking for Shiro for years now, and he’s always getting better at it. Shiro washes up after dinner while Keith takes his turn first in the shower. He’s just finishing up when he hears Keith calling for him, _loudly_.

“SHIRO!”

He storms up the stairs to the second floor bathroom and throws the door open.

“What is it? What’s wrong? Are you okay? Keith!”

“I’m here, I'm fine, it’s—” He’s huddled against the shower wall, backed into the corner and clearly frightened.

“What? What happened?”

Keith’s eyes search the room. “Were you in here a second ago?”

Shiro recoils, taken aback. “No, I was downstairs doing the dishes when I heard you screaming.”

“I’m not fucking around right now, Shiro. I won’t be mad if you came in here. Just tell me.”

“I wasn’t in here, I swear. I _just_ finished cleaning up. What’s this about?”

“Someone tapped on the shower.”

“…Excuse me?”

Keith runs both of his hands through his hair like he does when he’s frustrated. It’s extremely distracting, especially considering the water is still running and Shiro is trying not to watch as it cascades down Keith’s very naked body.

“Someone fucking—” he raps his knuckles on the glass partition “— _tapped_ on the shower!”

Shiro stops and looks around the bathroom. There’s no one there. “Wait here,” he says. “Keep the door open.” He goes into his own room first and flips on the lights. It’s quiet. The pages of the notepad on his bedside table rustle, catching Shiro’s attention as he whirls to catch whoever touched them. An errant breeze on the back of his neck raises goosebumps. He turns back around to see the window, which is still open. Just a breeze.

“Shiro?”

“Are you okay?” he calls back.

“Yeah.” Shiro jumps at the proximity of Keith’s voice, suddenly much closer than it was a second ago. “Just, you know, finished my shower. Thought I should quit wasting water.”

Shiro exhales a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Right.” He goes into Keith’s room next, Keith following close behind. He checks the windows first— closed. A creak in the far corner startles him. There’s nothing there. “Hello?” he calls. Nobody answers. To Keith, he asks, “Did you hear that?”

Keith nods. He looks white again. “I don’t see anything, though.”

“Me neither,” Shiro agrees. “I’ll go upstairs. You check downstairs.”

Keith nods again, and they split up. Upstairs is worse. It’s darker, quieter, and more open. There’s nothing there, either. Though, if he really thought someone was in the house, he probably would have called the police first. He doesn’t really think anyone tapped on the shower, but Keith looked so unnerved. Still, it’s eerily quiet now that he’s listening for something, and he can’t help but wonder if the old house and the big, open spaces are freaking Keith out an unusual amount.

When Keith makes it back upstairs, he’s gotten some color back in his cheeks. “Sorry,” he says. “I guess I must have imagined it.”

“It’s fine,” Shiro says. He guides Keith into his own room to sit on his bed. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answers. “I told you, I just imagined it.”

“No, I mean, are you okay with moving? I know I didn’t exactly run it past you first.”

Keith lays a hand on Shiro’s arm, gently pulling him down to sit next to him. “Yes you did.”

“Not while you still really had a say in any of it,” Shiro argues. “I just saw the house, called the bank, and asked you _while_ we were getting the virtual tour of the house.”

“And if I hadn’t wanted to move, you would have missed the opportunity for your dream home.”

“Right! I basically strong-armed you into it, and now you’re totally uncomfortable.”

Keith takes a deep breath and looks Shiro straight in the eye. “Shiro, listen to me. Wherever you want to live is fine with me. This house is amazing. I wasn’t particularly attached to our last apartment, anyway. The location here is better for me if we ever get to go back to work. We could get a dog, or a cat, or both. I’m happy here. As long as you’re here, I really don’t care where we live.”

Shiro’s heart flutters in his chest. He’s never heard Keith speak so brazenly about this little codependent relationship they’ve developed. “Do you really feel that way?”

“Of course,” Keith says, and he’s blushing again. Shiro’s never seen Keith blush so much in his life. “I’ll admit it’s a little bigger than I’m used to. And a little louder than I’m used to. I guess with this weird _Trapped_ vibe we have going on, I’m just feeling a little more sensitive to those kinds of things.”

“Are you sure this is okay?” Shiro asks, still concerned.

Keith rolls his eyes, but there’s no hostility behind the gesture. “Yeah. I think I just need to relax.”

“We’ll buy some candles,” Shiro jokes. It pulls a smile from Keith, which was the goal. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks, just to make sure.

“Yeah, thanks. I think I’m just gonna go to bed,” Keith says. “Probably missing some sleep.”

“Good idea.”

“What are you gonna do?” Keith asks. It almost sounds like an invitation, and _god_ does Shiro wish it was, but he knows it’s not.

“I might just watch TV in bed for a while. I’m not really tired yet. So I’ll be up for a while if you need anything.”

“Okay,” Keith says. “Well, goodnight.”

“‘Night.”

Shiro must drift off at some point, because the next thing he knows he’s being jolted out of sleep by what can only be described as a ruckus. “What—” He jolts out of bed to find the source of the noise. It’s coming from downstairs, though it’s not obvious yet exactly where.

It starts up again, creepy and unsettling in the big, otherwise silent house. As he walks through the house, he wishes he’d thought to grab a baseball bat or knife or something. His heartbeat thunders in his chest as he approaches the apparent source of the noise. It’s coming from the attachment where the garage was put in.

All that’s left between Shiro and the noise is the door leading out to the garage. He thinks of what he told Keith the other day— it’s just squirrels. They were making noise before, so they’re probably making noise now. Right?

He feels stupid reaching for the handle with a shaking hand. Why the fuck is he scared? It’s just squirrels. It’s just—

He flings the door open.

The ruckus stops.

Shiro flips the switch for the lights and swallows as he looks around the garage. It’s big and still mostly empty aside from the washer and dryer, some tools on the workbench, and an empty laundry basket. Nothing is moving.

“Hey!” he calls, hoping to startle out whatever squirrels are hiding in here. “Hey!”

Nothing moves.

He waits for a few moments. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for, just that whatever was making the noise stopped when he opened the door, and that doesn’t sit well with him. Maybe Keith’s paranoia is starting to wear off on him.

Suddenly, the noise starts up again twice as loudly. If Shiro had been holding a knife, he probably would have dropped it through his own foot for the force of how violently he startles.

He immediately feels like an idiot as he turns and sees the washer starting a ridiculously rowdy spin cycle. It shakes the machine so hard that it rattles the dryer next to it, banging metal against metal and making the loudest noise Shiro has ever heard laundry make. He can’t help but laugh at himself — honestly, how ridiculous — and resolves to head back to bed. He switches the lights off and turns to go back when he’s met with the dark figure of a person standing on the other side of the doorway.

Shiro’s never had a heart attack, but he thinks he may be having one now. “Fuck!”

The figure stands stark still, then makes a quick dash toward Shiro.

Shiro _really_ wishes he had that knife right about now.

He moves into a defensive position but he’s not quite quick enough. The figure catches up with him faster than he expected, and—

The lights come on.

“Sorry!” Keith says. “I’m sorry. Fuck.” He’s panting like he ran all the way down here. Maybe he did. “Thought I’d do some laundry. Couldn’t sleep.”

Shiro nods. He hasn’t quite recovered from the terrifying feeling of impending death.

“I’m so sorry,” Keith says again. “God, is that what I looked like in the shower earlier?”

“You looked a hell of a lot better in the shower,” Shiro’s mouth says before his brain can stop him. His eyes shoot up to Keith’s, widened in horror. “I mean—”

Keith’s laugh cuts off whatever explanation he was going to try to give. He’s red all the way to the tips of his ears, but he looks… pleased?

“Um. Thanks,” he says. He’s trying to tame his smile, but it seems to be fighting him at every turn.

The washer cuts off and a few seconds later emits a cheery little jingle that must indicate it’s finished.

“I just gotta…” Keith says, pointing into the garage toward the machines.

“Right.”

“I guess I won’t be doing laundry in the middle of the night anymore,” Keith says. “Didn’t know it would sound like we were being invaded.”

Shiro huffs out a breathy laugh. “Yeah, who could have known?”

“Sorry again,” Keith says. He scoots past Shiro through the door to switch his laundry into the dryer.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I didn’t need those last five years anyway.”

Keith scowls at him; he’s more than familiar with Shiro’s gallows humor, but he doesn’t always approve. He says nothing, though, and Shiro waits with him while he gets the dryer going.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Shiro asks on their way back up.

“Yeah, it’s cold tonight,” Keith explains. “Normally I like it cold, but it’s weird. When I’m under the blankets, it’s too hot, but when I take them off, it feels like the room drops ten degrees.”

“Weird,” Shiro frowns. “Maybe it’s the circulation.”

“Maybe.”

He lingers in Keith’s doorway. He could offer, but… is that too forward?

“Don’t worry about it,” Keith says, apparently having read Shiro’s mind. “I’ll figure it out. But I’ll probably leave the door open, so sorry if I snore.”

Shiro smiles. “No worries.”

____________________

There’s a tug on his leg.

Shiro turns over and kicks at the foot of the bed. Damn blankets, always getting twisted up.

He’s still mostly asleep, but awake enough to be annoyed when the blanket tugs again. He kicks out hard, annoyed. Fall is such a weird time. He always starts with the blankets on, and then halfway through the night, he’s sweating. He’s _just_ drifted off again, and then—

Shiro jolts up in bed. His blanket is on the floor, pooled below the foot of his bed. “What the…” He glances around the room, but of course, as expected, there’s no one— _nothing_ there. Cautiously, he crawls to the foot of the bed and reaches down to pick up the blanket. So he kicked them all the way off the bed in his sleep. Big deal. Though, if he’s ever going to share a bed with someone, he might need to warn his partner that he’s a sleep-fighter.

There’s a weird cold pocket near the floor, making the hairs on his arm stand up. He yanks his hand back along with the blanket. He’s unsettled, but that’s… that’s stupid, right? There’s nothing weird going on here. It’s just a blanket. It’s just a cold spot. Just the circulation.

Still, there’s… What? There’s nothing. But it feels weird. He pulls the blanket over himself and squeezes his eyes shut. He’s missing sleep. He watched too much TV before bed, and then he got woken up and had that weird encounter with Keith, and he’s just pent up and his mind is playing tricks on him.

He waits. After a few minutes, he realizes he’s listening for something, and he wants to smack himself for acting like an idiot. Of course nothing happens, and he drifts back off.

The instant he feels himself fade back into sleep again, the blanket is _ripped_ off of the bed.

This is not nothing.

He leaps out of bed and scrambles to the door. The only thing running through his mind is _Keith Keith Keith gotta check on Keith_. Keith’s door is open, but Keith isn’t in his bed.

Shiro’s vision whites out.

_Where is Keith?_

Keith’s blankets are still on his bed. Nothing seems to be out of place as far as Shiro can tell, though it’s difficult with some things still in boxes.

A strong breeze whips through Shiro’s hair. The windows are closed.

He runs.

“Keith!”

He doesn’t have to run far. Keith is standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking toward something that Shiro can’t see.

“Keith?”

Keith turns his head just a little to indicate that he’s heard Shiro, but his eyes don’t leave whatever he’s seeing.

“Keith, what is it?” He wants to look, but he’s scared now. Something is happening.

“Do you see it?” Keith asks.

Shiro swallows. He descends the stairs slowly, not looking forward to whatever is waiting for him. But Keith is there, and they’re both safer when they’re together, so he goes.

At the base of the stairs, Shiro steels himself and then turns in the direction of Keith’s gaze.

There’s nothing.

“What?” he asks Keith.

Keith inhales sharply. “You don’t see it?”

Shiro shakes his head. “I don’t see anything.” His heart is hammering. His chest feels tight. His breathing is labored. He counts to himself, trying to steady his body’s stress response. Everything in him is screaming to just leave, get a hotel, take Keith with him and get the fuck out, but there’s nowhere to go. The hotels are closed. Neither of them have any family in the state, and now the borders are closed. If they leave the house with nowhere to go, they’ll just be forced to come back.

“Keith, please. You’re scaring me.” Keith doesn’t answer. He just keeps staring. “What is it?” Shiro pleads. “Keith!”

“Nothing,” Keith whispers. “If— If you can’t see it, it’s not there.”

“Why are you down here?”

“I—” Keith finally averts his eyes to dart a glance at Shiro. “I felt something.”

“Something like, what?”

“Like…” He looks back at the spot from before. “I’m not sure. Just, something. Something not right.”

“Is it still there?” Shiro asks.

Keith shakes his head. “No. It never was.” It’s quiet for a few moments. Shiro doesn’t know what to say. Keith has never behaved this way before, at least not that Shiro can remember. He’s not sure what to make of it, especially in light of his own strange experience. “By the way,” Keith says, “Why did you come find me?”

“Oh, um. I was just…”

He can’t come up with an excuse fast enough. “You sounded freaked. Did something happen?”

Should he lie?

No. He doesn’t lie to Keith. And, if Keith is experiencing something weird, too…

“It felt like something yanked my blanket off the bed. I thought maybe there was someone here, but I didn’t see anyone.”

Keith remains silent. Somehow, that’s more unnerving than anything else Shiro has experienced so far.

“Let’s pull out the sofa bed,” Keith suggests. “Stay down here tonight.”

Shiro nods. He gathers their blankets and pillows while Keith gets the bed situated.

It’s weird, getting into bed next to Keith. They’ve shared a bed before— when drunk and uninhibited, or on vacation, or at other people’s houses when there was nowhere else to sleep. But now, here, in their own home where they each have their own separate bedrooms, it’s weird. Not in a bad way, it’s just… It’s intimate.

Keith turns on the TV. There’s an infomercial playing for what looks like some sort of juicer-shredder combo. It’s obviously not something anyone would ever actually need. But Keith leaves it there, turns the volume down to a near-silent murmur, rolls over, and settles in to sleep.

Shiro doesn’t comment; Keith doesn’t usually fall asleep with the TV on, but it’s a welcome distraction in this house while they’re both feeling weird. He rolls the opposite way and attempts to sleep, too.

In the morning, the TV is off. Keith is still asleep.

____________________

The weekend brings with it extra time to clean and put away the rest of their things. It goes quickly; Shiro has never been more grateful that they’re both the type of people who like to get things done. They’re sweeping out the garage and the attached mudroom when Keith calls him over.

“Take a look at this,” Keith says. There’s a loose floorboard by one of the walls, probably damaged when the addition was built.

“That's a shame,” Shiro says. “I wonder why they didn’t fix this?”

Keith shrugs. “Probably didn’t notice it. I never would have noticed it if I hadn’t put my knee on it. Look.” He puts his weight on one end of the floorboard, pushing the other end up just a bit. He’s right; it’s hardly noticeable. “I could probably fix it,” he says.

“Right now?”

Keith nods. “The nails are all bent, so I’d have to pull it up, readjust it, and nail it back down, but we have nails, and the space fits, so it’s not hard.”

“Can you do it without damaging the wood?”

“Definitely.” He goes out to the garage to grab his hammer and begins to pull the old nails from the floor. Once all of the nails have been removed, he wedges the claw of the hammer under the looser side and pops the board out. “Whoa.”

“What?”

“There’s something in here.”

Shiro watches as Keith carefully extracts the item, taking care not to ruin it. “It’s… a book,” Shiro says, confused. “Why on Earth is that there?”

“Dunno,” Keith says. “But I guess that explains the loose board.” He sets it to the side and makes quick work of securing the board back in place. “Done.”

“Wow, that looks great,” Shiro tells him. “Good as new.”

“Yup. Now, how about we take a look at this book?”

It appears to be some kind of old diary. The handwriting is very neat and tidy on some pages, and on others it’s nearly illegible. The binding is leather, probably, but it’s obviously been hand-bound, so it’s hard to say.

The words inside are disturbing.

“It’s no wonder she hid this,” Keith says. Shiro looks up from the book to quirk an eyebrow at him.

“She?”

“Oh, I just… figured,” he explains. “From the way it’s written. And the subject matter.”

“Ah, true.” But he’s right; it’s no wonder the person who wrote this would have wanted to keep it hidden. It chronicles horrible things: starvation, abuse, death of loved ones, hate. So much hate. The book itself would almost feel angry, if inanimate objects could project emotional auras.

Keith’s brows are furrowed as he flips through page after page of misery. “We shouldn’t be reading this,” he states, closing the book. “This is someone’s private life.”

Shiro can’t help but smile at Keith’s consideration. “That’s sweet, Keith, but the person who wrote this is probably long gone. It must be a hundred years old.”

“Yeah, but. Still.”

“Okay,” Shiro agrees. “I’m not loving the content anyway.” He takes it from Keith’s hands gingerly, careful not to damage it, and places it on a shelf. “What should we do with it?”

“Leave it for now,” Keith says. “I’ll bring it upstairs.” He stands and stretches. “That’s about all we can do for today. I’ll start dinner if you want to shower first tonight.”

“Sure,” Shiro agrees easily. “I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

Keith goes to prep the rice while Shiro hops in the shower to wash the day’s work off of him. The rain shower head system is an absolute god-send, and amazingly, tall enough for Shiro to stand at his full height— a rare luxury for him since he shot up to six-foot-four.

The water is piping hot, fogging up the glass doors so that he can’t even see outside the shower. Shiro likes to doodle on the glass when they get like this, like he always did as a kid. He draws a smiley face, and then a little flower, and then, indulgently, “Shiro <3 Keith” which he quickly wipes away in case Keith comes knocking.

Once he’s fresh and clean and relaxed, he goes to find Keith again to let him know he’s finished with the shower. Keith is sliding a tray of broccoli into the oven, giving Shiro a fantastic view of his backside. He smiles when he straightens up and sees Shiro there. Keith never seems to do it on purpose, but whenever he sees Shiro and lights up like this, it makes Shiro’s heart do a happy somersault.

“I set a timer for this in case I’m not back in time to check on it,” Keith explains. “I’ll be quick.”

Shiro waves him away. “Take your time. I can handle taking something out of the oven.”

Keith nods and goes. In the meantime, Shiro cleans up.

The evening passes without incident.

It’s been a couple of days since anything strange has happened, and it feels really nice, after the shaky start in the house, to just relax without feeling ill-at-ease in their own home. They sleep in their own rooms. Shiro even manages to sleep through the night without waking up. Nothing tugs on his blankets. No loud noises, no bizarre feelings, no breezes where breezes shouldn’t exist.

It’s calm. It’s serene.

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

In the morning when he shuffles out of bed and toward the bathroom to start his day, he finds Keith standing in front of the mirror, face twisted in shock. Shiro walks up behind him and immediately pales at what he sees. It’s written all over the mirror, in his own handwriting:

_Shiro <3 Keith_

_Shiro <3 Keith_

_Shiro <3 Keith_

_Shiro <3 Keith_

“Shiro, what the fuck,” Keith whispers.

Shiro doesn’t know what to say, except, “I didn’t do this.” He reaches out to touch the words. “What is this?”

“Well I sure as fuck didn’t do it,” Keith snaps.

“Keith—”

Keith whirls on him. “What is this, Shiro? You say you didn’t do it, but it had to be one of us, right? So what is it?” Shiro looks at him helplessly. “That’s your handwriting. I know what your handwriting looks like. Is this some kind of sick joke? Why? This isn’t funny.”

“Keith, I swear. I didn’t do this.”

Keith pushes past him and back into his room. “Whatever. I can’t deal with this.”

“Wait—” The door slams shut.

Fuck.

Unsettling isn’t a strong enough word to describe how it feels to see his biggest secret, written in his own handwriting, plastered all over the bathroom mirror, especially when he didn’t put it there. There’s something wrong with this house. There’s something deeply, horrifyingly wrong. And they can’t leave.

Shiro does what he can. He cleans the mirror until it’s sparkling and tosses the rag into his laundry hamper. Keith doesn’t come out of his room. It’s hard not to take it a little personally— what had Keith meant, asking if it was a joke? Is it so horrible to imagine Shiro having feelings for him? There’s certainly no way to misconstrue this reaction as anything positive.

The worst part is that before this, Shiro had started to let himself hope.

Around lunch time, Shiro knocks on Keith’s bedroom door.

“Go away,” comes Keith’s voice from inside.

Shiro sighs. “Can we talk?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this, Shiro.” He still sounds upset, and it breaks Shiro’s heart.

“I cleaned the mirror. I’m— I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.” He’s not sure what else to say, but it feels like something’s missing. So he hovers. But Keith doesn’t answer, so Shiro tells him he’ll be in the garage for the rest of the afternoon and leaves it at that.

____________________

Keith stays in his room until Monday morning when he needs to work in the office. It’s awkward. It’s awkward, and Shiro hates that more than anything. No matter what’s happened in their lives, things have never been awkward between them.

Halfway through the day, Keith says, “I need to tell you something.” It makes Shiro pause what he’s doing, not because of the words, but because of the way Keith sounds as he says them: miserable.

“Okay,” Shiro says, bracing himself. He’s not really ready to hear Keith say that he is, in fact, super uncomfortable with the idea of Shiro harboring feelings for him.

“If this is a bad time, it can wait,” Keith says. “After work, maybe.”

It’s a blessedly slow day for Shiro (no urgent messages in sight), and the only thing worse than hearing Keith reject him would be waiting all day in _anticipation_ of Keith rejecting him. So he says, “Now’s fine.”

He’s not prepared to hear Keith reject him, but he’s even less prepared to hear what Keith actually has to say.

“When I was a kid,” Keith starts, “weird things used to happen to me. Small stuff at first, you know? Like, I’d put something somewhere and it would be somewhere completely different when I went to go find it. Which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal— I had parents, right? They could have moved it. But I started hiding things, putting them places my parents wouldn’t go looking for them. But they’d still get moved around. Once, I found my stuffed hippo on top of the high kitchen cabinets. I was too small then to reach all the way up there, so my parents believed me when I told them I didn’t put it there. I couldn’t figure out why they’d do it, either, but I left it alone.

“Then, it would be stuff like candles blowing out, or even lighting by themselves, when I was in the room. Cabinets would slam in the kitchen and wake me up. One time, the front door slammed open while we were eating dinner. We were all just sitting there, at the dinner table, and it scared the shit out of us. It was locked, and it wasn’t storming or anything. After that, my mom called a priest.”

Keith breaks here. Shiro is almost afraid to ask, but he has to know. “What happened?”

“It was some guy she knew from her hometown. Dad was really skeptical about it, but Mom insisted. She said if anybody could help us understand what was happening, it would be this guy. So she called him, and he came over, and he told us our house was infested.”

“Infested?”

“Haunted, basically. But he said infested. He said something was living there, and it wasn’t happy. He started talking about what a spiritual infestation might look like, and that was enough to convince my mom.”

Shiro takes a deep breath and releases it. “So what did you do?”

Keith averts his eyes, settling his gaze on his fingers twisting in his lap. “We moved. After that, everything stopped.”

Shiro closes his eyes and tries to breathe. This is the worst case scenario. “We can’t move,” he whispers. “Even if we weren’t locked down, Keith, I can’t afford to leave this house. I put everything I had into this house.”

“I know,” Keith says. “Which is why I think we should call Kolivan.”

____________________

Keith’s mother still has Kolivan’s number, which is convenient. Trying to convince her not to come up (“You won’t be able to get into the state, Mom.” “Watch me.”) is not quite as easy.

Kolivan is a gruff, rugged-looking man, nothing at all how Shiro pictured a priest would look.

“I helped you when you were a child,” Kolivan says after Keith has introduced them both. It’s not a question, really; it’s more like a confirmation that what Keith is saying is true.

“Yes,” Keith responds anyway. “And now it’s happening again, and we can’t leave. We need your help.”

“Tell me about your situation.”

Keith explains their situation as best he can. Shiro offers commentary when he needs to fill in gaps.

When they’re finished explaining, Kolivan says, “I won’t be able to offer you a solution until I visit the house. There is no way to know what you are dealing with if I cannot feel it.”

Shiro watches Keith deflate. It’s a long shot to begin with — he’s still not really sure he believes that this is actually happening — but Keith does, and if breaking the rules to get Kolivan here will help, they’ll do it.

“Will you come?” Shiro asks.

Kolivan nods.

“The borders are closed,” Shiro says. “How will you get here?”

“I will get there,” Kolivan promises. “Do not worry about that. Expect me the day after tomorrow.”

Keith and Shiro look to each other at the same time, and their eyes meet. Keith looks hopeful, maybe even relieved, and that’s when Shiro realizes: Keith is legitimately scared. There’s more working beneath the surface than Keith has let on, and all of his jumpiness since moving in has not just been nerves, but a fear of something much more sinister.

“Thank you,” Shiro breathes.

The line goes dead.

____________________

A thump from Keith’s bedroom pulls Shiro from a restless sleep. He gropes the nightstand for his phone and groans when the light burns his eyes. The time reads 3:03 AM.

Another thump, louder this time. “Keith?” he calls. “Everything okay?”

It’s quiet for a few minutes, and then a series of thumps ring out, like several books falling off of a shelf or something.

“Keith?”

Shiro hears the distinctive sound of Keith grunting and fears the worse. What if a shelf fell on him and he’s trapped? Shiro’s heart pounds as he springs out of bed to investigate.

He pounds on the door. “Keith!” Keith doesn’t answer, so Shiro goes for the handle. It’s locked. “Keith! Open up!” He pounds on the door again. He alternates knocking and jiggling the stubborn handle for as long as his thinning patience will last. “Keith, if you don’t answer me, I’m going to break the door down.” There’s no answer, just another grunt and another thump, and that’s permission enough for Shiro.

He steels himself — knocking down a door is not as easy as it seems — but he knows where to kick, and he knows he has the strength. So he psychs himself up, bouncing on the balls of his feet while he judges the distance, and then— The wood splinters at the point of impact. Keith is on the bed, eyes wide and panicked and piercing into Shiro’s as soon as the door bangs open.

Around the room are signs of a struggle. Everything has been knocked off of Keith’s nightstands. His closet is open, clothes strewn all over the floor and spilling out into the main room. The blinds are askew, like someone haphazardly yanked them open. And Keith is lying on the bed, wrists together over his head, grunting at Shiro in a way that makes it seem as if he can’t open his mouth.

But there’s nothing there.

“Keith! God, are you okay?” Shiro moves to his side in an instant, checking him over for injury.

Keith screams.

It’s closed-mouthed, his lips not parting, and it’s the single most terrifying thing Shiro has ever heard, coupled with the wild look in Keith’s eyes.

There’s tension in Keith’s body, like he’s trying to move but can’t. His biceps flex and his shoulders strain, but his hands remain pinned above his head.

Shiro starts there. He wraps a hand around each of Keith’s wrists and tries to pull them apart, but they won’t budge. “I’m trying! Keith, I’m tr—” The wind is knocked out of him as his back slams against the wall behind him. Suddenly he’s ten feet from Keith’s bed and Keith is still lying there helplessly, and his vision is spotting in front of his face from the force of the impact.

“What—”

He’s moved again, but he can’t see or feel anything. His feet fly out from under him and he knocks his head again, on the floor this time, though he’s able to put his elbows under him in time to lessen the blow.

Keith screams again, that horrible, muted scream, when Shiro’s body is forcibly removed from the room and the door slams shut behind him.

“KEITH!!”

Despite the broken latch, the door doesn’t budge when Shiro pushes against it. He kicks and throws his body weight into it, but it stays firmly shut.

It’s—

It’s not _possible_ —

But—

_There’s something in there with Keith_.

He redoubles his efforts, bruising his body with the force of his hits, but eventually it works, the door flinging open like whatever was on the other side got bored of holding it, and Shiro stumbles into the room.

Keith is no longer on the bed.

Shiro casts his gaze frantically around the room.

He _has_ to be here. There’s nowhere else for him to go.

Panicked, he lunges for the window, but it’s closed. He opens it anyway in case whatever it is took Keith— what if he’s out there— what if Keith is lying on the ground outside and— but he has to look, he has to find Keith— and he’s not there. Shiro breathes a sigh of relief. He feels sick, nauseous, discomfort and terror seeping into every pore at the unknown evil that’s attacking them — attacking _Keith_ — and they can’t even see it. Can’t touch it.

He closes the window again and locks it for good measure; there’s no point in helping this thing hurt them. Slightly less shaken, Shiro is able to notice that the closet door is closed. It wasn’t like that before. He wastes no steps getting there and yanking it open with no resistance.

Keith is huddled near the back clutching a knife he must have hidden in the closet when they moved in.

“Keith? It’s me, it’s Shiro. Can you speak?”

Keith nods, then with a shaky exhale says, “Yes.”

“Okay. Come with me. Let’s get you out of here.”

“Shiro, wh—” He cuts himself off with a shuddering breath. Shiro has never seen him so rattled. “Where can we go? We can’t leave.”

“Then we’ll stay downstairs. Or camp in the backyard if we have to.”

“We don’t have cold weather camping gear and we can’t go out and buy any.”

“We’ll use blankets.”

“And if it rains?”

“Then we’ll camp in the garage.”

“No,” Keith says. He takes a deep breath. “We can stay downstairs.”

Shiro offers his hand, and Keith allows Shiro to pull him up and into a hug. Shiro isn’t sure if he’s trying to comfort Keith or himself, probably both, but he holds Keith tightly for as long as he’s willing to stay in this room. Keith clutches him in return, breathing deeply and taking the comfort Shiro offers.

“Okay,” Shiro agrees, though he’s not sure he really understands. “Then we’ll stay on the couch. We’re gonna figure this out, Keith. Whatever it is.” He guides Keith out of the room. There’s no sense in closing the door; it’ll need to be replaced, if they stay here. He leads them downstairs to the sofa bed, which now needs to be made up again if they’re going to stay here for the foreseeable future.

“Shiro?” Keith says. He sounds timid, which is only cause for more alarm.

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He pulls Keith onto the sofa with him, thoroughly confused.

Keith fidgets with his fingers. “I…” Shiro isn’t feeling particularly patient right now. He’s feeling pent-up, anxious, scared. But Keith needs a rock. And he needs patience. So Shiro waits. “I saw her,” says Keith, finally. “And I didn’t say anything.”

Shiro’s head is reeling. “Who…?”

Keith whips his head up to look at Shiro. His eyes are narrowed, suspicious maybe, or disbelieving. “ _Her_. The woman.”

“Keith,” Shiro says, “What woman?”

“What woman— Shiro, _the woman in my room_.”

_The woman in my room._

He thinks back to the other night.

_If you can’t see it, it’s not there_.

The words on the mirror, written in something red that Shiro didn’t want to think too hard about.

Someone is in his house? Really here? Keith can see her?

“There was nobody there,” Shiro argues. It’s not right. There can’t be someone here, because there was _nobody there_.

“You still can’t see her?” Keith asks. He sounds like Shiro feels. Shiro isn’t sure what’s worse: fighting something they can’t see, or seeing something that shouldn’t exist.

“I don’t see anything. I don’t feel anything. When I was— when she dragged me out of the room, I didn’t feel it. When she pushed me, all I felt was the wall.”

Keith’s eyes are wide and horrified. “What’s wrong with me?” he whispers.

“ _Nothing_ ,” Shiro vows. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.” Keith nods. He trusts Shiro, even when Shiro has no way of knowing that what he’s saying is true. Shiro isn’t sure if he’s worthy of that level of trust, but he knows if their positions were reversed, he’d trust Keith just the same.

Luckily, they’d been too lazy to remove sheets the last time they put the sofa bed away, so it already has the fitted sheet on it when they pull it out. Keith waits there while Shiro collects the blankets and pillows from his room — they can share; he’s not going back into Keith’s room tonight — and gets everything situated.

“It’s cold,” Keith mumbles when they’re lying in bed together for the second time in less than a week. Shiro feels fine. It doesn’t feel cold to him, but he also wasn’t held down and nearly suffocated by an invisible woman.

He turns over and holds out his arms for Keith. “Come here,” he whispers. “I’ll keep you warm.”

Keith scoots into him and buries his face in Shiro’s chest. “Thanks,” he mumbles, so lowly Shiro barely hears it. Shiro wishes he could relish the feeling of Keith in his arms, in his bed. But he can’t. There’s too much anxiety here between them. He feels cheated. He pulls Keith close and allows himself the indulgence of pressing a kiss to the top of Keith’s head.

“You’re okay,” he soothes as he rubs Keith’s back. “Everything will be okay. Sleep now. I’m right here.”

Shiro waits until Keith’s breathing evens out and soft snores puff against his collarbone before finally closing his eyes and falling asleep.

____________________

The house feels cold everywhere, but especially in Keith’s room. The thermostat claims it’s perfectly comfortable inside, but Shiro sees the way Keith shivers every so often.

They still have to work. It’s not likely to be a productive day for either of them, but they’re here, and they have to do it. It’s not like either of them can very well ask for a day off because they’re scared of a ghost and waiting for a cryptic priest to show up and take care of it. So they sit in their office and do their best.

Below them, items thump and crash all day.

Sometimes, after blessed pockets of silence, the scratching starts. It sounds like it’s coming from inside the walls.

Shiro feels like he’s going insane. Keith doesn’t seem to be holding up much better. Every now and then, he casts his eyes around, or whips his head toward the stairs, like he’s looking for something. It’s supremely unsettling.

Once, his hand shoots out and catches Shiro’s arm in a death grip.

He’s looking at the stairs again.

“What is it?” Shiro asks. Keith is white. Shiro’s heart starts thundering, the way it does now when there’s something unseen lurking nearby.

“She’s in here,” Keith whispers. He looks…

Keith doesn’t frighten easily. Shiro remembers a few years ago when there was a string of break-ins in their neighborhood. One woman was killed in her home when the intruder broke in and found her awake. He remembers there was a bad storm one night, the kind that’s loud and booming, with tree branches that scratch the window and whistling wind that makes everything eerie. Keith wasn’t scared then. Even when Shiro could have sworn he heard a window break, Keith just walked the house to check all of the windows and doors and other possible entrances. Keith had been the brave one then, unflinching in his courage and willing to do anything to put Shiro’s mind at ease.

Now, Keith’s wide eyes are filled with stone-cold terror.

“Get behind me,” Shiro says.

Keith shakes his head. “I can’t look away.”

“Keith,” Shiro pleads. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t see her.”

“Stay where you are,” Keith commands. Then, “Who are you?”

He’s talking to the woman, Shiro realizes. He has no way of knowing if she answers.

“What do you want from us? We haven’t done anything to you.”

Keith doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, but judging from the way his fists ball at his sides, something is happening.

He hears scratching by the stairs. Keith’s jaw clenches.

Shiro moves to go see what’s happening. “Don’t!” Keith calls. “Don’t go near her.”

He freezes. “What’s happening?”

Keith doesn’t answer. He continues to watch. He looks deceptively calm, now; his white knuckles are the only obvious sign of his distress.

The scratching stops after a few minutes. After that, Keith lets out a long, shaky breath. “She’s gone,” he says.

“For good?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Just out of the room.”

They walk over to the banister together. There are little wood shavings surrounding a carved message that wasn’t there before.

_I’m not enough._

Shiro, bewildered, looks to Keith for answers. Keith, for his part, looks like he’s just seen a ghost.

“Keith? What is this?”

Keith darts downstairs. Shiro follows. Keith makes straight for his room.

“Hey, wait!” Shiro calls. “We should stay out of there!”

Keith doesn’t answer. He starts digging through his belongings, first one nightstand, then the other, then the bookshelf. Most of his books are still strewn about the room. He rips the bedding away and lifts the mattress to check beneath it. There’s nothing. He stomps over to his closet and digs through the piles of clothes in and around it. Shiro watches him tear his room apart with an ache in his chest. Keith doesn’t do this.

“Where is it?” Keith asks under his breath. He’s breathing heavily now. “Where—” He looks to Shiro frantically. “Have you seen my journal?”

Shiro shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even know you kept one.”

“It’s red,” Keith says. “And small. Fits in my pocket.”

Shiro begins to help dig through Keith’s room, but he already knows it’s a lost cause. Keith has likely come to the same conclusion, but still he searches, getting more desperate and violent the longer it takes to find what he’s looking for.

“ _Where is it?_ ” he demands of no one in particular. Or maybe he’s asking _her_.

He picks up a random book and throws it against the wall with all of his strength. The noise makes Shiro jump. “Keith.” He makes his way to Keith’s side and puts a hand on his elbow, effectively stopping him from throwing another book.

Keith looks up at him with wide, misty eyes. “Shiro.” He collapses against Shiro’s chest.

It crushes Shiro, then, the knowledge that Keith believes those words. That he thinks he’s not enough. For what? For whom? For _him_?

“Keith,” Shiro whispers into his hair. He tries to pull Keith back, to look him in the eyes, but Keith stays stubbornly pressed against him. “When this is all over,” Shiro vows, “I’ll tell you exactly how I feel.” He squeezes Keith tightly and thinks about last night, when he held him just like this in almost the same place.

Keith shivers and pulls back.

“She’s in our house,” Keith tells him. “What if this never ends? What if Kolivan comes and tells us the only way to make it stop is to leave?”

“I won’t let anything happen you to,” Shiro answers. “Whatever Kolivan says, we’ll do it. I won’t let her hurt you again.” He places one hand against Keith’s neck and strokes his thumb across it in what’s supposed to be a comforting gesture, but Keith flinches.

“My throat,” he says. He touches it. “Where she…”

With horror and disgust, Shiro watches as bruises bloom around Keith’s neck, shaped distinctly like a hand.

“She won’t hurt you again,” Shiro says. “We just need to make it through one more night.”

____________________

At 3:03 exactly, the floorboards begin to creak.

Footsteps.

They start upstairs in Keith’s room.

“Shiro.”

“I hear it.”

They wait. It’s excruciating.

It’s wrong, Shiro thinks, that all they can do is sit and wait. They can’t physically defend themselves. They can’t leave. They’re trapped. The best they can do is hope help arrives sooner rather than later.

_Thump_.

Both turn in the direction of the sound.

The stairs. They groan with each descending step.

“Keith?”

“I don’t see her,” Keith whispers.

_Thump_.

Shiro moves to stand, but Keith pulls him back. “Don’t.”

“I want to be ready,” Shiro says.

He scoots to the edge of the bed and plants his feet on the ground. On his side, Keith does the same.

_Thump_.

_CRASH_.

A glass flies across the room and explodes against the opposite wall. They both spring up and turn toward the kitchen.

“I don’t see her,” Keith says again, more frantically this time. “But I can feel her.”

A breeze ruffles Shiro’s bangs, and the next second Keith is sent sprawling backwards.

“Keith!”

Keith slides across the ground and smacks against the wall, picking up pieces of shattered glass along the way. Keith’s eyes go wide when he looks up, and Shiro knows he sees her now. Even though Shiro can’t.

There’s a special kind of frustration that comes with watching something invisible attack the person he loves. He can’t fight it. He can only try to help.

He watches Keith as he tries to come up with a plan. Has he ever read anything about the paranormal? Ghosts? Demons?

He doesn’t even know what this is. He can’t see it. Even if he could, he can’t feel it the way Keith can.

Keith ducks his head just in time for four deep gouges appear in the wall behind him. His head jerks back up unnaturally, and Keith screams as another gouge splits his cheek.

Shiro sees red.

He charges the invisible enemy with no plan. He strikes out, aiming for the space above Keith where a person might stand. He doesn’t hit anything.

“Leave him alone!” he bellows. “Come for me, coward!”

“Shiro, don’t!”

“Come on,” he taunts. He feels like he should be foaming at the mouth for how angry he is. How _dare_ this _thing_ hurt Keith. _Continue_ hurting Keith. He’ll send it back to Hell himself if he has to. “Are you scared of me? Huh? Is that why you’re going after him instead of me?”

Nothing happens for a second. Then, white-hot searing pain bursts across his nose and cheeks.

“SHIRO!”

Warmth trickles down the bridge of his nose and drips off the tip. It feels completely silent for just a brief moment, just long enough for Shiro to hear the faint _plink_ of his own blood hitting the original Victorian hardwood.

This is _his_ house.

“Fuck you,” he spits.

He turns on his heel and breaks for the kitchen.

“Where are you going?!”

Shiro yanks open the refrigerator and shuffles through the produce drawer. He doesn’t cook much, and he’s not very well-versed in the paranormal, but he remembers watching movies where people burn things.

He pulls a bundle out of the fridge and holds it up for Keith, who has followed him into the kitchen. “Is this sage?”

“Parsley,” Keith says, bemused.

He turns back to the fridge and pulls out something else.

“Basil.”

“Do we _have_ sage?”

Keith comes over and roots around in the fridge. “You’re lucky I was planning to make sausage.” He pulls out another, smaller bundle. “Guess I’ll have to buy more.”

Shiro pulls open several drawers until he finds a lighter, then lights the bundle.

“What are you _doing_?”

“Warding off the spirit,” Shiro says. The bundle ignites in a burst of flame and then quickly dies off into a smokey smolder once the leaves have burned off. “Do you have a crucifix?”

“No, but—” Keith sprints into the garage. There’s a bit of clattering and some banging sounds, and when Keith comes back, he’s holding a makeshift cross, made from the wood they were going to use to build a weight rack and hastily nailed together.

Shiro nods his approval. “Good.” He moves to Keith’s side. “We need to clean your wound.”

“Yours too,” Keith says. Shiro had already forgotten about his own in his single-minded rage.

“Hold this,” Shiro instructs, handing over the sage. Keith takes it, and before he can argue, Shiro sprints up the stairs to find the first aid things he’ll need to treat Keith.

As soon as he’s out of range of Keith, something slams into him, _hard_.

“Fuck,” he hisses as he feels a bruise bloom on his hip in real time. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he tells the darkness. He turns on the light in the bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet.

It slams shut, barely missing slamming his hand in it as Shiro withdraws a bottle of antiseptic. There’s a handprint there, clear as anything Shiro has ever seen. It makes him hesitate to keep searching, scared of having his hand or armed slammed in something, but he pushes through. The second drawer holds the gauze and bandages. Keith will probably need stitches, but this will have to do for now.

He trips on the stairs. It’s not an accident.

He drops everything in favor of catching himself. He has to— this thing, whatever or whomever it is, is going to kill him.

Shiro has to keep going. He has to get back to where Keith is waiting. It’s safe there, or maybe it isn’t, but either way he needs to be able to see Keith.

The supplies scatter and bounce down the stairs. Some fall through the open slats in the spiral staircase, and the bottle lands on one of the stairs. He scoops it up as he goes, maintaining a death grip on the railing at the same time.

He’s pissed it off.

He knows, because the same searing pain shoots through his spine as he feels the skin on his back split in several long slashes. He shouts, in pain and terror and surprise, and has to grit his teeth as he continues to descend the stairs. At the bottom he trips again and tumbles forward. He can’t stop the fall, but he can twist and stop himself from landing flat on his face. He lands on his back instead— the pain is a shock to his system, and he lies there, stunned. He doesn’t move until suddenly, he’s being dragged across the floor. It rips at the wounds on his back and stings on his scalp where the thing has a grip on his hair.

“Keith!” he cries out. “Help!”

He kicks and pulls at his hair, trying to break the thing’s grip on him. It doesn’t work. He reaches for anything he can grab onto, but it’s no use. He pulls the furniture with him and knocks over more of their possessions.

There’s a pull on his leg. He forces his eyes to open (when had they closed?) to find Keith, pulling against the thing to stop her from taking him wherever she’s going. Shiro looks around blearily; he’s by the front door now. The door is open. He’s being pulled outside.

“Don’t let her take me,” he gasps. “Keith, please.”

“I _won’t_ ,” he answers fiercely. “She can’t have you, Shiro. Do you hear me? You can’t have him!”

A defiant tug on his hair tells Shiro that she feels otherwise. He grasps at his hair again, trying to stop the pain, trying to get her to leg go, trying anything he can while Keith has him by the legs, pulling him the opposite direction, stretching him, tugging at his gaping wounds.

In a daze, Shiro wonders what time it is. Will the sun rise soon? Will she go away if it does?

The smell of smoke burns his nostrils. He didn’t even notice Keith leave, but now he’s back waving the sage over Shiro’s head. The grip on his hair releases suddenly, making him fall back and bang his head on the ground. Again. He’s going to have a concussion when this is all over.

He hears Keith muttering, “Son of bitch,” as he tries to help Shiro up without singeing him with the sage.

“You need help, Shiro,” Keith says. There’s a tremor in his voice. “We have to go to the hospital.”

“Can’t leave,” he argues, gasping against the pain. “Kolivan.”

“We can’t wait!”

Shiro shakes his head. “Just treat my back.” He manages to get into a chair. Keith helps him pull his shirt off and sucks in a sharp breath at whatever he sees.

“Shiro…”

“We’ll go in the morning. Please. The antiseptic, it’s by the stairs—”

“I don’t want to split up again.”

He’s right. When they split up, they’re left vulnerable. So they go together to retrieve the supplies, Keith waving the sage around all the time.

“Jesus Christ,” Keith wheezes as they move. “All this blood…”

“I’m fine,” Shiro says. “I’ll be fine. Your face—”

“Barely hurts anymore.” He helps Shiro back into his chair. “This is gonna sting.” He gives Shiro the sage to hold onto and starts with the antiseptic.

The crashing and banging starts up again in Keith’s room. At this rate, Shiro’s not sure how much of their stuff or the house itself will be left in the morning. A glance at the clock shows that it’s almost four in the morning, now. The sun should rise in just a couple of hours. They can make it through this.

He flinches at the stinging pain in his back as Keith cleans and dresses his wounds as best he can. A thought occurs to him.

“Keith,” he asks, “how did you see her in the office?”

“Hm?”

“Earlier, upstairs. You saw her, right? When she was scratching the banister?”

Keith’s motions slow as he considers the implications of the question. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, she was just standing there, and then she scratched the banister. Then she was gone.”

“In the middle of the day,” Shiro confirms.

“Yes.”

“So we’re not safe when the sun comes up.”

He hears Keith swallow behind him. “I think—” He cuts himself off and starts again. “She didn’t seem angry then. Upstairs.”

Shiro huffs. “I don’t understand.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Keith says. “It’s hard to explain.”

There’s nothing he can say to that. He just has to trust Keith and continue holding out hope for the morning. He looks down at the bundle in his hands; it’s mostly burned out. It won’t be able to protect them for much longer.

Despite the adrenaline suppressing the worst of his pain, he’s starting to feel lightheaded. He has to face the very real possibility that he won’t make it out of this. But Keith isn’t as badly injured. He’s no longer the thing’s main target— Shiro made sure of that. If she really is determined to kill Shiro, she’ll succeed.

“Keith,” Shiro says. “I need to say something.”

“Tomorrow,” Keith immediately replies. “Save whatever it is for tomorrow.”

“But, if I don’t make it through the night—”

“There’s no point thinking about that. I’ll make sure you do.”

And Shiro trusts him, he really really does. He knows that Keith will do everything he can to keep that promise.

But this thing is untouchable. It’s a lot to ask, even of Keith.

Still, he nods. “Tomorrow, then.”

It’s as peaceful as it can be for the next hour or so. There are noises everywhere, scratches and thumps and sometimes even a grunt. But nothing touches them while they clean each other up and then while they sit together and wait.

The sage burns out just after five.

Shiro feels his dread grow like kudzu, coating his insides and filling his lungs until he can barely breathe.

“Keith,” he whispers. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Keith whispers back. He’s clutching the cross he made. “You?”

“I’m okay.”

Everything is silent. The only noise is the sound of their breathing and the faint sounds of the outdoors floating in through the still-open front door.

After everything they’ve been through, silence is the most terrifying sound.

Shiro starts when he feels something touch his hand. He almost pulls away until he realizes it’s Keith. Keith is reaching for his hand to hold. Shiro complies, gripping Keith’s hand tightly.

It feels better like this, the two of them together, a united front.

“I’ve been thinking,” Keith says some time later. “What if she’s trying to tell us something?”

Shiro hums. “Like what?”

“I’m not sure,” Keith says. “But we didn’t get it, and now she’s pissed.”

“Maybe.”

The bottle of olive oil on the counter shatters. The oil oozes across the countertop and over the side, dripping all over the cabinets and the floor.

A long scratch cuts through the linoleum and then stops near the edge, close to where they’re standing together. Nothing happens for a moment, and then the scratching starts up again like before, when they were in the office.

They watch the words appear as they are carved out.

_Shiro <3 Keith_

_I’m not enough._

Then a third line:

_For the things he has done, he will pay. Perhaps not in life, but thereafter, certainly_.

“I recognize this,” Keith says. He looks up at where the thing should be. “It’s your diary,” he says.

“You can see her?”

Keith nods. “Shiro, we need to get that diary.” He catches Shiro’s eye and nods. “We need to go upstairs. It’ll be okay.”

They walk carefully, making sure to keep a tight hold on each other as they go. Shiro isn’t as convinced as Keith about whatever they’re doing, but he’s not the one who sees ghosts. Keith’s intuition has never failed them before, at least. There’s no reason to think it will fail now.

Keith’s room is a disaster. Shiro wonders how they hell they’re supposed to find one single book in all of this chaos, when nearly everything Keith owns is littered across the floor.

Still, they search.

“I think I can feel it,” Keith says after a while. “But I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.”

Shiro continues to search the old-fashioned way, because he feels nothing except pain and exhaustion.

It’s gone silent again since the encounter in the kitchen, which is why Shiro jumps when he hears heavy footsteps fall downstairs. They’re not the creaking groans of the footsteps from before; they sound solid.

A glance at Keith reveals that he’s also at attention. He lifts a finger to his lips and then moves soundlessly across the room and out to the landing above the stairs. Shiro can’t help but admire his grace.

The footsteps draw closer. Shiro watches Keith retreat from the stairs slightly, getting out of the intruder’s line of sight, probably, and then return when the footsteps stop. He watches for several moments that stretch out torturously. Then—

“Kolivan?”

A beat, and then Keith relaxes.

“Oh, thank god. Kolivan, up here!”

Shiro listens as the footsteps retreat briefly to shut the door, then return to thunk up the stairs. “Keith,” Kolivan says. “It’s good to see you well. I was sorry to receive your call.”

“We need your help.”

Kolivan looks over them both. Shiro takes him in as well. He’s tall, even taller than Shiro, and littered with scars over the parts of his body that Shiro can see. He has a jagged scar over one eye, eerily similar to the one on Keith’s cheek, and probably the one across the bridge of his own nose.

They can trust Kolivan. Even Shiro can feel it.

“Yes, it seems you do,” Kolivan answers. “There is so much despair here.”

“We found a journal,” Keith explains. “Old, hidden in the floorboards. I brought it up here. I hadn’t put it together yet when we called you, but the attacks started after we found it.”

“Good,” Kolivan says. “What does it look like?”

As Keith explains, Shiro wonders why someone would consider anything about this situation good. He asks as much.

“If the spirit is attached to the item, then we can release it.”

Keith tilts his head in question, pausing in his now-resumed search. “But when I was a kid…”

“The spirit was attached to the home, then,” Kolivan explains gruffly. “It would not follow you.”

Keith accepts the answer and continues. Shiro swallows. “But this spirit isn’t attached to the house?”

“No.”

“So, if we leave…?”

“If I am correct, the spirit is attached to the journal. It goes where the journal goes.”

Shiro quirks an eyebrow. “So, what, we just throw it out? Let the garbage man deal with it? What do we do until then?”

Kolivan shakes his head. “No. The spirit will not allow that. You have interacted with the journal now. You have interacted with the spirit itself, invited it to have a relationship with you by acknowledging it. It is attached to you now, as is the item.”

Shiro's dread increases ten-fold. He starts to feel lightheaded again, but for reasons unrelated to his injuries.

Keith must sense his distress and comes to lay a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. Kolivan will help us.”

Shiro forces himself to take deep breaths. In and out. Keith squeezes his shoulder.

“You must locate the item and destroy it,” Kolivan explains. “As long as it is here, the spirit will forever be attached to it, forced to remain in this life that can no longer support it.”

“Burn it,” Keith says. Kolivan nods.

They search in silence until the sun has risen. Aside from their own movements, it’s still suspiciously quiet throughout the house.

Finally, after what feels like hours, Keith emerges from a pile of stuff and rubble with the old book.

As if on cue, a blood-curdling shriek pierces the air. It sounds like it’s coming from every direction at the same time.

Keith and Kolivan both snap their heads in the same direction at the same time. Shiro tries, he tries to see, but there’s _nothing there, god damn it—!_

“RUN!”

Keith grabs Shiro by the arm and yanks him up. “Go!” he says. “Outside!” He pulls Shiro down the stairs and toward the front door.

“What’s going on?!” Shiro demands.

“Just listen to me and get outside now, Shiro! Go!”

He all but shoves Shiro through the front door and closes it behind him.

“Keith!” Shiro bangs on the door. He tries to reach for the handle, but something tells him not to open it.

His instincts are at war with each other. One part of himself is desperate to go back inside with Keith. Being apart makes them vulnerable. It’s not safe. Keith needs him. Another part of him — the bigger part, maybe, since he’s still out here — screams at him that inside is nogoodbadbadbadEVIL, and he takes an involuntary step back from the door.

Inside, he hears Keith’s voice shouting, but he can’t make out the words. Kolivan shouts back. Another shriek, deeper this time, horrid, _death_ —

And then he smells smoke.

Again, he reaches for the door handle. It _burns_. He pulls back his hand in shock and horror to find that the skin of his palm is blistered. But Keith is inside—

Through the window, he sees light burst through the darkness and then fizzle out. It’s quiet again.

Footsteps.

The door opens.

Keith is there, bruised and bearing more cuts and scrapes, and he may have singed the tips of his bangs, but he’s _there_.

“It’s okay now,” he says.

He reaches for Shiro’s hand, and Shiro lets him take it.

They go in together.

The house hasn’t burned. There doorknob is no longer hot. There’s a trash can filled with ashes in the middle of the kitchen.

“I will stay the night with you,” Kolivan says. “I will bless this home before I go.”

____________________

The list of things that need to be replaced has grown quite a bit.

The linoleum countertop was always going to have to go, but now it’s priority number one. The floors will need to be buffed in some places, as well as the banister in the office, and some of the built-ins need to be repaired. The door upstairs needs to be replaced completely, and the door jamb needs repair, too.

Some of their belongings can’t be fixed, but that’s okay. They can always get new things.

The bedrooms need to be rearranged, too; luckily, they both readily agree to move into Shiro’s room full time and convert Keith’s bedroom into a guest room.

Keith smiles a lot, now. He says he didn’t realize it at the time, but when they first moved in, he felt heavy and burdened down. After burning the journal and receiving the blessing from Kolivan, he said he felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. Kolivan had almost smiled, then, and told him that meant it had worked. They’d be okay now.

And they have been.

No more unexplained thumping or scratching or grunting or screaming.

No more visions.

And now…

Shiro pulls Keith closer on the couch. They’re watching some absurd new romcom, something about a girl pretending she has a boyfriend and accidentally falling for him, and having a great time making fun of it.

Keith snuggles closer into his side, and Shiro breathes a sigh of contentment. He turns to kiss Keith on the top of his head. Keith tilts his face up to Shiro’s and smiles. The look in his eyes is so serene. It’s pure trust and peace and love. It’s the last one that knocks Shiro on his metaphorical ass. The way Keith looks at him with so much unrestrained love in his eyes is still novel, even after weeks of being in a relationship together.

“What?” Keith asks. He’s still smiling softly.

“I love you,” Shiro says, because it’s true and because he will never get tired of saying it.

Keith blushes up to the tip of his nose, like he does every time Shiro says it, and his smile grows. “What was that for?”

“Because I do,” Shiro says with a shrug. “Because I spent too much time not telling you before. Because you’re beautiful, and brave, and strong. And because you are the best thing in my life.”

“I should be saying that to you,” Keith mutters, overcome and embarrassed as he hides his face in the crook of Shiro’s neck.

Shiro just huffs a painfully affectionate laugh.

“Sweet,” he whispers, and kisses him again.

Keith doesn’t let him say anything else. He lifts himself up and places a gentle hand on Shiro’s cheek, pulling him into a long, lazy kiss.

“I love you, too,” Keith says.

Shiro kisses him again, just because he can.


End file.
